


Stalemate, Checkmate

by KDblack, Stardust_Steel



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Awesome Bulma Briefs, Canonical Character Death, Chess, F/M, Future Trunks deserves better, Gen, M/M, Multi, Smart Son Goku (Dragon Ball), Stream of Consciousness, Symbolism, Vegeta being Vegeta (Dragon Ball), chess analogy, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29166882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stardust_Steel/pseuds/Stardust_Steel
Summary: The King may be the figurehead in Chess, but every piece has its own role to play.The Dragon team and their villain counterparts as Chess pieces.
Relationships: Bulma Briefs/Vegeta, Chi-Chi/Son Goku (Dragon Ball), Son Goku & Vegeta (Dragon Ball), Son Goku/Vegeta (Dragon Ball)
Comments: 82
Kudos: 40





	1. Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Kakavege, multi if you stand on one leg, tilt your head to the left and squint just a little (OvO)

**Pawns are soldiers of the court. They may not be the most powerful piece on the board, but they are important because they are the first pieces to begin the game. A pawn has potential to become any piece with any power if it reaches the end of the board.**

_Goten and Trunks_

There is a shame to beginning. The weight of uncertainty, of innocence, of youth. When they were very young - so much younger than they are now - they felt it without understanding it. It drove them to move faster, harder, trying to become more than they were. At the same time, it left them ignorant of the stakes of this game. 

Once upon a time, Goten and Trunks were the best pieces left on the board. They crossed into the enemy’s territory and rose anew, wreathed in terrible power. It didn’t matter. They were taken anyways.

As they grow older, Goten and Trunks do not fight often. They play in the sun and let the power that is their birthright slip through their fingers time and again. They are still young, but they feel older, so they cling to their tattered childhood with all they’ve got. The two of them are the first pieces to be moved and the first to make way for someone else. Always the sacrifice, never the saviours.

Better to be taken early than to give their all and fail again.

* * *

**The Castle is considered the protective force of the board, moving in straight lines. They are reliable and steady in their power.**

_Piccolo and Krillin_

All mountains were just rocks once. All oceans were just rain. When he first fought Goku, Piccolo was only three years old. No one remembers the fear in his heart as he laid eyes on the man who’d killed him. Or his father. Back then, he didn’t think there was a difference. Only one person saw the jagged edges between memory and being, and Goku was never good with words.

He reached out, at the end. His hand was big and human-soft. His black eyes were terribly kind. It was too much, too fast, and Piccolo ran.

It is so, so hard to speak about this after. The words stick in his throat like gravel. Who would understand the pain of being seen before you were ready? Who could listen to this childish drivel and not laugh?

“Yeah,” Krillin says when Piccolo finally finishes vomiting up his feelings under the setting sun. “Those eyes of his see everything. It’s kinda rough, isn’t it?” A fleshy pink mouth tilts upward shyly, offering up a grin.

Piccolo stares down at him, this tiny man who’s spent most of his life in Goku’s shadow, and wonders who he was before the Saiyan entered his life. 

“Do you regret it?” He doesn’t even know what he means by that question. Meeting Goku? Fighting him? Losing to him and letting those hands patch him up again?

Krillin’s smile grows, like a flower in the sun. “Nah. I didn’t like who I was before. I was trying to be someone better, anyway.”

Be someone better, huh? That’s a tall order for a creature born from evil. Some might call it an impossible battle. If there’s anything Piccolo’s learned - from Goku, from Gohan, from this quiet moment with Krillin - it’s that those are the most worthwhile kind. 

The edges of Piccolo’s mouth pull back in a grin. “I’ll beat you there.”

* * *

**Knights, like Towers, are considered the protective force. They have a unique skill set in that they can leap over other players and are the only pieces on the board that can start the game, other than a pawn.**

_Future Trunks_

The boy from the future has always been running. From the moment he could walk, he fled. He has no camouflage, his fangs are too small to do harm, and he’s running out of holes to hide in. What can he do but run?

Fighting back doesn’t work. He’s too weak. He’ll always be too weak. So he twists and leaps between skyscrapers, over canyons, through the whitewater currents of time. Call it resourcefulness, he calls it cowardice. Call it bravery, he calls it desperation. He can get over any obstacle but he can never take it down.

There’s a voice in the back of his head that never stops screaming. If he closes his eyes, he can still feel the rain on his face.

“Are you okay?” asks a child who looks and sounds too familiar for comfort.

Smile, he tells himself, and lies. “I will be.”

Tiny Gohan, with his long hair and huge, trusting eyes, frowns. “It’s okay to be scared.”

He says it like he read it in a book. Their little trump card, filled with doubt. 

“Of course it is,” Trunks says. He even means it. The only one who’s not allowed to freeze up or fall down is him. If he stops running, it’ll be his end.

* * *

**The Bishop stands close to the king and queen because it represents the church, which many royal courts hold important. It is the third most powerful piece on the chessboard because back in the past religion could influence many people even without the royal family.**

_Bulma_

The road to hell is paved with bad intentions, they say, but Bulma disagrees. The road to heaven is to hate with good intentions. She’s married to a prince who thinks the same way, and best friends with a stranger who acts the opposite.

There is more to strength than what lies in flesh, more than muscle, bone, and sinew. There is power in the mind and force in a stubborn spirit. That’s why Bulma can stare down destructive childish gods without fear. Why she can keep up with two cosmic forces without ever throwing a punch.

She has the same selfish pride as Vegeta, who sees himself as too important - too destined for great things - to settle for mediocre or second-best. She has the same careless confidence as Goku, who doesn’t need anyone to validate his significance to the world because he knows himself, as she knows herself. Nobody taught her these things. She picked them up on her own.

In this, she and Chichi are different. The goal of a mother is to make herself obsolete, and call it the quirk of an heiress or a genius, but Bulma has never seen herself and her desires as anything less than important.

“Do you think it was worth it?” Chichi asked her once. Bulma’s not sure what she was referring to. Motherhood? Marrying two titans who are too enamoured with each other to really see anyone else? How the fine lines of her face and skin grow ever clearer while her prince and her best friend remain the same?

Of course it’s worth it. Whatever brings adventure and new, exciting, cutting edge discoveries is always worth it. 

But that’s not always true, she learns, when she looks into a small face with tufts of purple hair and the haunted eyes of her future son.

Vegeta has his past to justify the peace he finds in violence, and Goku has his blood to excuse why he’s always thirsty for more. Bulma? She carries no angst, no clouded forgotten past, no excuses - she’s just one button away from the wrong decision, from becoming the next Dr. Gero. Maybe she should be more worried about that than she is. But Bulma’s strength is a selfish one, and the line between genius and madness has always been thin. 

It’ll be fine, probably. If she goes too far, the game will end, and nobody wants that, least of all her.

* * *

**The Queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess next to the figurehead that is the King. She can move in any direction and as many squares as she wants, making her both the ace and the wildcard. History has shown reigning queens to be more ruthless than their counterparts in war.**

_Vegeta_

Strength is the only justice in this world. Those who have it can do anything. Those who lack it can do nothing. If those are his only choices, then Vegeta can only be strong. Every fall is just a setback. Every wound is just carelessness. Every loss - 

Vegeta hasn’t lost. He never loses. He will avenge himself.

Climb higher, go further, there is no turning back. Only the future exists, a beautiful upward slope toward true superiority. True perfection. That legendary moment his father promised in faded memories so long ago.

So what if Vegeta’s father is dead? So what if his planet is gone? So what if he can never be the king his father told him he would be? You can sacrifice all the pawns you want, as long as the queen is on the board, victory is still in sight. He can still have all he’s ever wanted.

He’s only ever wanted - 

He’s forgotten. He started forgetting the moment Kakarot knocked him down on a backwater planet that should’ve been dust for killing ‘friends’. Forgetting went faster and faster with each thought, each meeting, each word exchanged. Now all that remains is that hateful face. 

Someday, Vegeta will no longer be able to even pretend to hate Kakarot, and that scares him more than anything. He can only be the strongest. He cannot live for others. He can barely even live for himself. 

But if that is strength, then Kakarot - Goku - is the weakest man in the world. 

* * *

**The King is the most important piece in chess because he is the figurehead. If he is trapped and no other moves are allowed for him, the game is over. If he falls, their whole side dies.** **Some may consider the King an overrated piece but no, the board only exists because the piece does. His moves are limited only because his hands are tied to bigger things.**

_Goku_

Every piece on the board moves because of where the King is and where he needs to be. If he’s checkmated, the game is over. For that reason, most people watch the King as if enamoured by his every action.

What they don’t realise is that the King is the least invested piece on the board, because he has his sights set on something further. To win the game is still to be part of it, after all, and Goku’s never been interested in playing by someone else’s rules.

He sees the same defiance in Vegeta, tampered though it may be with the torments of his past and hatred of himself. That belief - _there is no limit to our strength, there is more to the game than what lies at the end_ \- binds them together, keeps them dancing around each other. 

But where Vegeta falters and doubts and uses rage to fill the space between, Goku’s mind has always been clear, his heart impossibly pure in intent. Every piece on the board stands in awe of his resolve.

Goku is an angel with a streak of demon instinct, the villain who chose to be a hero. He lives forever in the spaces between stars. His voice is the beating of each precious heart, his words too simple to be forgotten.

Come, all you conquerors, you warlords, you fiends. This king cannot be taken. After all, he’s not playing the same game.


	2. Villains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Villain's side of the board.

**The Pawn is considered the smallest minion, often underestimated and overlooked. It is the first piece to begin the game. Its real power lies in its versatility. At the end of the board, the pawn has the potential to take on any role it wants. However, given that there are many pawns, it is the first sacrifice, the first collateral damage.**

_ Raditz _

Raditz never quite lived up to the Elite title. He wasn’t rock-bottom, but he had no right being as high-ranked as he was. It was bad enough in the training programs, where he was fast and clever enough to make it at least look like he belonged. When he’s assigned to follow Prince Vegeta into Lord Frieza’s forces, things become exponentially harder.

Vegeta fights when they call him a monkey - fights with his nails, his words, even just the look in his eyes. He’s allowed to fight. He’s the prince. Anyone with eyes can tell that Frieza finds it amusing to keep Vegeta in the palm of his hand. Raditz doesn’t have the same freedom. So he keeps his head down and his tail curled tight around his waist, doesn’t talk back to his betters, stands there and watches as Vegeta is ‘taught a lesson’ over and over.

“Useless,” Vegeta spits at him from blood-flecked lips, and Raditz takes it because it’s true. He can’t protect his prince. He can’t even protect himself. The numbers on his scouter are damning. Some Saiyan Elite he is.

If he had something to protect, that might matter less. Nappa has Vegeta. Vegeta has his pride. Raditz has nothing but his life - his life, and faint memories of a small face and huge, black eyes blinking curiously at him. He doesn’t think about Kakarot often. He can’t afford to. There’s no time to mourn, grieve, or contemplate might-have-beens in the Frieza Force.

But Kakarot is alive. Alive and well, on a thriving planet that has never heard of Frieza. For a moment, Raditz has something precious in his hands, and he moves to protect it the only way he knows how.

In the end, even that is worthless. He’s forgotten like he was never there at all.

* * *

**The Castle moves in straight lines, pragmatic in its movement, unwavering in its intention. It goes as many squares and steps as it desires, unlimited by desires or silly emotions of the pieces around it.**

_ Cell _

When Cell first opened his eyes, he was only a fragment of his true self. Malnourished, Imperfect. One sensation cut through all sentient thought: he was  **hungry** , and he  **needed** to feed to be complete.

As he grew, his thoughts began to reform. It was strange: he had aspects of Piccolo’s pragmatism. Frieza’s poise. Vegeta’s arrogance. Goku’s  singular drive . Both saiyans’ lust for battle and craving for that which could evolve them. So much intelligence and power hosted in one body. But they all clashed against each other like a jangled melody, powerful contradicting forces waiting to explode. It took the coolness of two cybernetic humans to bring it to order.

As he emerges from the final absorption into his final form, Cell finally feels complete.

With the android’ systems, Cell’s hunger dwindled, became calmer. It manifests as gentlemanliness even to his enemies, because perfect beings should have good manners, and in the orderly, perfect square block he cuts for the Cell games.

When he loses to a kid with haunted eyes and a body too small for the sheer strength it holds, Cell’s veneer of calm collapses back into the fragments he was created from.

This cannot be possible. Losing is not possible, and certainly  **not** acceptable. The boy is a hybrid of Saiyan Cells, just like Cell is; all the tragedy and experience and power merged into one body, just like Cell was. But unlike Cell, he is not perfect, and Cell will not lose to an imperfect being. 

Cell was promised perfection. He was made for it. Without perfection, his existence has no purpose.

He will not be denied.

* * *

**The Knight**

_ Androids 17 and 18 _

His name was Lapis, her name was Lazuli, and they were always together. They crawled out of the wreckage of East City together, same skinned knees and bruised faces, and watched the lightshow. When the fires had faded, they wandered down the street hand in hand, roaming aimlessly. Laughing in brittle voices while her ankle swelled up slowly and blood soaked into his shoes. That scene plays in her head, over and over, the whole time she’s laid out on Gero’s lab table.

Burning houses, burning cars, fire to fill their numb hearts. 

Ah, memories.

That was their youth: wasted growing up in a city that didn’t know their names, and then lost to the road on a stupid, dead-end trek. Nobody had time or cash to spare for refugees. Not when nobody knew where the monsters that destroyed East City had gone. The knot in her gut twisted every time they were turned away. Soon, they stopped asking and started taking. Who cared if someone else got hurt? 

The world never had a place for them. Is it any wonder they grew up hating it?

For a time, they were free, young and running wild on the city streets. It couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t. Eventually, they slipped up.

She dreams of having all her skin flayed off and watching through lidless eyes as her brother is drugged, stripped, torn open. Glistening organs exposed to the air. Veins filling with fluids that aren’t blood. Metal crawling up and consuming him from the inside out. The worst part is that it isn’t a dream.

When she wakes, she is Android 18, and she is unfinished. Unfinished enough to try and put her fist through Gero’s stomach. Her brother moves to kill him, too, but 17 is just a little slow. A little too calculating for his own good. Her blow isn’t quite enough to kill the bastard and 17 doesn’t move fast enough to finish him off. They sink into darkness together.

Gero called them artificial humans when he reactivated them. Made of purely organic components. As if. There’s metal under her skin, looped along her spinal cord, buried deep in her brain. When she speaks, the words come out cold and distant. Inside, she is on fire.

She looks at her brother. He nods back. They move forward together.

Everything else can burn.

* * *

**The Bishop**

_ Kid Buu _

Sing a song of six-pence, pockets full of rye. Come all ye mighty, come to die.

When the heart was torn out, evil began to sing, But this one bowed before no masters, recognized no king.

Because Kid Buu had no recognition to speak of.

It is a sentient being, but that is all It is. Compassion and Intelligence are foreign concepts to It. Literally torn out in the hands of a prince too proud to win and a hero too selfish to lose. 

Sentience without compassion and intelligence was Kid Buu, and Kid Buu was insanity incarnate.

Kid Buu was reborn of confusion and chaos. Its existence could not be explained by any logic. It had no capacity for feelings, barring boredom oscillating fury. How could anyone expect It to be anything less than completely destructive?

Its counterpart was good, and weak because of it. Kid Buu was evil, and It drew strength from Its wickedness.

But these were silly concepts. What were good and evil but labels anyway? Created by beings too weak to understand that these things mattered nothing when nothing mattered, when one couldn’t feel. Everything was boring, so nothing deserved to live. As Kid Buu stepped on the defiant prince’s back and smirked up at the hero and his spirit orb in the sky, It knew It was right. 

Two halves make one whole, but Kid Buu was already whole in that It was wholly evil. It didn’t have a goal, it didn’t have a reason. It just wanted the world to burn.

Even as It burned and crumbled to dust, eviscerated by the purity of intent of a united people, It felt Nothing.

Years later, a dark skinned boy worked a field under the blazing summer sun. As he worked, Uub wondered why it was easier for him to crush the crops than to nourish them, and why the burning heat felt so familiar on his skin.

* * *

**The Queen is the most deadly piece on the board. Unlimited in both movement and direction, her true power lies in her lack of empathy. She is ruthless and deadly, making every piece second guess themselves. She mows down everything that stands against her without mercy because they deserve none. She may be the King’s second, but on the board, she is the most powerful, active piece.**

_ Frieza _

An emperor doesn’t bother himself with insects. Doesn’t bother caring for them, doesn’t bother killing them. Because they are insects: they are nothing, they are beneath his notice. 

So to Frieza, nothing was more beguiling, infuriating (fascinating) when insects do not know their place.

Emperors owned things, found use for them. Let them think they were important, so that he could crush them at his own desire. Played them off against each other so they would always be too busy fighting among themselves to challenge him, too busy fighting for his favour. He basked in their obedience, he glorified in their weakness. Their fear made him strong. 

The weak had so many problems. So many struggles. And Freiza the mighty could not help but be entertained by their endless, pointless struggle, so he allowed them to surround him.

He had stolen a spitfire prince almost from his cradle. Watched in amusement as the little thing hissed fury at everyone and everything. Frieza did not let himself get attached to his toys, but he grew fond of this one. Vegeta had been too small and too powerful for his age. It reminded Frieza of himself in some ways, except he was the emperor, the lord of the  **universe,** and Vegeta was nothing but an insect of a monkey that wanted to be a king. 

It gave Frieza no greater pleasure than to shape the fiery prince in his image. Corrode his personality until he became nothing but a subservient shadow, a washed-out version of Frieza himself. The best way to destroy something was to corrupt it, after all.

* * *

**The King stands above all. He is the figurehead who begins the game and he is the one to end it.** **If he is trapped and no other moves are allowed for him, the game is over.** **The board only exists because the piece does. His moves are limited only because his hands are tied to bigger things.**

_ Zamasu _

Kindness is good. Goodness is pure. Purity is divine.

When you put it like that, everything is simple. Zamasu doesn’t understand why everyone else seems to have so much trouble with such basic concepts.

That which is unkind - 

That which is evil - 

That which is impure - 

All of it has failed the Gods. What is the point of letting those cruel failures scrabble in the dirt for a few more years? To what meaningless end? Their fates are already set. They will bring neither kindness nor goodness to the universe. To show compassion to them is to release them from their suffering. 

Mortal sins can only be forgiven in death. That is the responsibility of the Gods.

When He faces two despicable, wilful mortals who  **dare** to make a mockery of divine power; and the boy with the sword, whose eyes look up at Him with defiance, and not the obedience a God deserves… Zamasu does his duty and passes His judgment. Mortal sins should be forgiven, but He cannot forgive this.

The god who disagrees with Him is no god at all. Only  **He** is worthy to stand at his own side. Even if the other Him is encased in a mortal shell, the shell is that of a King. Nothing less is allowed. Zamasu’s purity cannot be - is  **not** \- tainted.

Salvation awaits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We were toying around with the idea of a villain's side, starting with the idea of Frieza as Queen to mirror Vegeta, and Zamasu as King to mirror Goku (and Goku Black.) Did anyone catch that? and then the story of Raditz as a lost potential (such a huge character waste :'< Goku got to forgive everyone but this own brother) and ... it just kept growing.
> 
> This was both so much fun and a challenge to write, to tie them back to each hero. We'd love to hear your thoughts! Debate is very very welcome XD

**Author's Note:**

> This came from watching Kingdom hearts 3 opening where the main characters are symbolised as chess pieces, and we thought OOOH, which chess piece would each Dragon team be? 
> 
> Feel free to comment and disagree or agree, we welcome debate XD


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